The Infamous iPhone X

It’s here! Or, it’s coming soon at least. The iPhone X (pronounced “ten,” not “ex”) can be pre-ordered on October 27th and shipping will begin November third. What is the iPhone X, exactly? Well, let’s take a look.

Before we get into all of the fancy features, let’s first take a reality check: The X is really expensive. It’s starting price is a whopping $999 for the 64GB. And if you want that extra storage upgrade to 256GB, you’ll have to upgrade the price with it to $1,149. Apple didn’t just decide to put us all in debt, though; the reason for the price increase is in part due to the new OLED displays that it buys from Samsung, which cost a little more than twice the LCD screens seen in earlier models.

If you can somehow afford it, though, the iPhone X has some pretty awesome features. It supports fast charging, meaning that you’ll be able to get 50% charge in a short thirty minutes. Galileo support, Europe’s shiny new satellite system, was also added, meaning that GPS and other navigation features will be more accurate. The OLED screen display is very bright and rich, with lighter whites and deeper blacks, according to the website Mashable, which did an overview of the phone.

The camera on this machine alone is almost worth the price, with more enhanced photos than ever. There is optical image stabilization, which are fancy words for less blurry images, and for the first time Portrait Mode will be supported in selfie mode, so the camera will focus on your face and blur out the background. Sophomore Sarah Mahoney says that the iPhone X is “really cool,” and that she likes “the new photo features.”

The home button, much like the headphone jack, is gone! To navigate the phone you must use a series of swiping gestures. This also means that Touch ID has been thrown out as well. Instead, iPhone X uses facial recognition. So, basically you can just look at your phone and it will unlock. Facial recognition also works for the new Animoji. The camera scans your face and, kind of like a Snapchat filter, you can move an emoji around by making expressions and moving your face. If you ever had the burning desire to send someone a moving poop emoji, the iPhone X is definitely for you.

The colors are one of the biggest letdowns of the new phone. Say goodbye to Rose Gold, because iPhone X only comes in Space Grey and light Silver. The screen takes up the majority of the phone, leaving only a small bar at the top for the camera and microphone. This might make it hard to build cases, but we’ll see how the phone case companies do.

Wireless charging is yet another fancy feature that the X supports. The back of it is made of glass, and to charge it, you simply place it face-up against a charging pad, which is just a circular block-looking thing. The glass back also means that you should be extra careful when handling your phone, because breaking it could potentially be extremely dangerous.

Overall it’s a pretty exciting new piece of technology, although it still seems futuristic to most of us. Don’t forget that you can pre-order starting October 27th if you plan on buying the iPhone X.